More people watching Olympics on the Web

Graduate student Madhusudhan Govindaraju watches the Olympics without a television. He wants to see the event which happens once in four years instantly.\n"I check out the results on the Web, as I believe in finding out results live," he said. \nGovindaraju is one of many young Olympic watchers who are turning away from the television and toward the Internet to experience the Olympics. The Internet is providing greater coverage and is offering news as it happens, unlike NBC, who has the rights to air the Games, but is offering a taped version.\n"The Olympics should be shown live on TV, no matter what time that turns out to be," Govindaraju said. "Tape-delayed telecast is not half as exciting. The Olympics is not a soap opera or a sitcom for Network channels to wait for prime time to telecast it."\nNBC is said to have paid $705 million in rights fees and $100 million in production costs, but is taking a different approach to covering the Olympics with more profile and feature pieces. \nOne problem NBC is trying to avoid with airing the broadcasts live is the time difference. Sydney is 15 hours ahead of New York and 18 hours ahead of the West Coast, which add to the problem of presenting the Olympics at a convenient time, authorities at CNBC told The Associated Press.\nTelecommunications professor Susan Eastman examines television programming and the industry's efforts to get viewers, especially in sports. She said delayed games are only part of the reason why young people are turning to the Web. \n"One of the most common reasons for very young people to turn to the Internet is the scores are available," she said. "The version is available much earlier over the Internet. Young people like the Internet. Even if we had the Games over the television, they'd still watch it over the Internet." \nEastman said the Internet provides a venue for 'dedicated sports fans' where NBC is profiling athletes. NBC has made it known they are appealing to a general audience, especially women.\n"In their opinion, women like the stories and the profiles," she said. "The Internet also provides a wide array of information and the TV's also profiling individual stories. The dedicated sports may be more interested in scores than stories."\nSenior Don Gold plans to watch Olympics over the Internet for the very reasons Eastman outlined. \n"If I know who won, it's not as much fun," he said. "Television is delayed and some of the commentators get annoying. For all the sports going on, they only show the ones the U.S. is directly in. If there's a soccer game they won't show it unless America is in it. It's a biased way to broadcast, and you aren't getting a very clear picture of what's going on."\nThe switch to the Internet may also point to a larger trend: fewer people are turning to the television for the news. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of people obtaining news from television declined 8 percent, while the number of people getting the news online jumped 10 percent.\nThe Associated Press contributed to this story.